Wednesday, 5 February 2014

Pressure on Fake Charities

It is sad but instructive that it is not the government but the IEA that is leading a new campaign against fake charities - a genre of tax consumption first brought to prominence by Chris Mounsey on his DK blog. Whitehall and Westminster still find these abominations too convenient. The contrived 'pressure' brought by fake campaign groups actually funded by the departments they pretend to lobby too frequently leads to ill considered and poorly supported legislation that happens to fit with the narrow obsessions of a particular minister or mandarin.

The Fake Charities were an easy win for Cameron in 2010; four years on and he's done nothing. Yet again, it will be public pressure bearing directly on MPs that will be the impetus for change.

Another crucial role for the fake charities is that they also provide crucial employment opportunities for one-time student activists before they are permitted to join the political elites. Justanother example of the politcal classes looking after their own...

There used to be a good website which still exists but is woefully under maintained and out of date.

www.fakecharities.org

This is their definition of what constitutes a fake charity:

"We define a Fake Charity as any organisation registered as a UK charity that derives more than 10% of its income—and/or more than £1 million—from the government, while also lobbying the government. That lobbying can take the form of calling for new policies, changes to the law or increases in (their own) funding".

And from the other side of the coin, The Times today reports "The names of more than a dozen charities suspected of serious abuse are being kept secret by the charity watchdog.The identities of 13 charities placed under statutory inquiry during the past nine months have been withheld by the Charity Commission, preventing prospective donors from knowing about the allegations against them.The inquiries are opened into charities suspected of only the most serious wrongdoing, including the financing of terrorism, tax avoidance, abuse of vulnerable people or other serious breaches of trust."Samizdata queries the inclusion of 'tax avoidance' in that list.

Actually, I believe that Greenpeace's charitable status was only repealed in New Zealand. In that country, charities are still banned from political campaigning—our similar law was repealed by the New Labour government.

And thank you, Raedwald, for the acknowledgment—although others have taken "fake charities" and run with it beautifully. I keep on saying that this concept is my only lasting contribution to political discourse—other than to make it coarser!